Article Prepared By Robert Michie
Trails and Sidewalks Committee, Lee District
Last Reviewed: 3 February 2008
Version 1.0

Summary:

The subject area is located on the east side of Beulah Street, just south
of the intersection of Beulah Street and Kingstowne Village Parkway. A
Special Exception triggered the trail requirement. The Veterans of Foreign
Wars (VFW) Post 7327 has consolidated several properties for the purpose of
building a new clubhouse.

The applicant is required to provide an 10-foot wide paved trail along
its property frontage. Applicant's Request: Wave the construction of a trail because of the
following issues:

There is already a sidewalk on the site.

Figure 1: Map of Subject Area

Discussion:

Figure 1 shows that this area of Beulah Street has single family and
multifamily subdivisions clustered around the Beulah Street and Kingstowne
Village Parkway intersection. Just north of the VFW site is Franconia Moose
Lodge, which was the subject
of a trail waiver request in 2006. Beulah Street itself runs south into Fort Belvoir, which will get
perhaps a third of the scheduled Base Area Realignment Committee (BRAC)
buildup scheduled for the Fort Belvoir installation (Fairfax County thinks
that most of the "Fort Belvoir" augmentation is going to the Engineer
Proving Ground parcel, further to the west). Beulah Street has a sidewalk
network and on-road bike lanes that connect to similar features along
Telegraph Road.

Field Check 2 February 2008

The photograph shows the existing sidewalk area
around the consolidate property.

This is a typical sidewalk configuration for Beulah Street: Beulah
features a six foot wide bike lane next to the curb. Just beyond the curb is
a 20-inch wide ornamental grass strip, and next to the grass strip is a
six-foot wide asphalt trail.

The area beyond the inside edge of the
sidewalk is free of shrubbery, telephone poles, masonry structures, and
other obstructions through most of the frontage of the consolidation. Widening
the six-foot trail to ten feet is not going to be difficult, particularly
considering the scope of the construction required to build the Post.

Recommendation:

Deny the Waiver for the following reasons:

There are no obstructions preventing the widening of the walking path.